Once again, Bill Kristol gets his way

For two consecutive presidential cycles now, the founding editor of the Weekly Standard has successfully led the conservative media drumbeat for a bold vice presidential pick: In 2008, he fervently supported and promoted Sarah Palin for months before the country even knew her name. In 2012, he urged Mitt Romney to “go for the gold” with Paul Ryan.

For a generation, stretching back to the 1980s, Kristol has used his influence to goad Republicans to be bolder and more ambitious — and riskier, for themselves, the Republican Party, and the nation — in their decisions. This extends beyond political calculation to policy. In 2003, Kristol was at the forefront of the lobbying effort for the Iraq war, which — however history judges it — cost far more in blood and treasure than he and his fellow neoconservatives had anticipated.

However disparate, Sarah Palin and Iraq now stand, respectively, as the GOP’s riskiest and most controversial (and, arguably, in the case of the war, disastrous) political and policy bets of the of the past decade. And both are inextricably linked to Kristol, who continues to exert tremendous influence from the comfort of television studios and the editors’ chair.

Kristol doesn’t agree with the negative assessments of Iraq or Palin and dismisses the notion that his previous hits and misses have any bearing on Ryan’s future.

“That argument is almost as silly as someone saying that in the '80s I was a supporter of Reagan’s foreign policy, which won the Cold War, and his tax cuts, which led to economic growth; in the '90s I supported intervention in the Balkans and welfare reform, both of which worked; and in the last decade I opposed Harriet Miers, whose withdrawal paved the way for a terrific justice, Sam Alito; and I supported the surge in Iraq, which worked — and therefore I’m some sort of prophet!” he told POLITICO.

“I guess what I’d say is that, I think, on the whole, my batting average isn’t bad,” he said.

Romney’s own campaign feigns no connection to Kristol, despite the fact that — unlike many conservative commentators — he is hard-wired into the campaign.

Kristol is close to Ryan, and tells POLITICO that he “began to entertain the idea of Ryan as VP a year ago, the day after he announced he wouldn’t run for president.”

While Kristol’s support may not have directly influenced Romney’s decision — which, campaign sources say, was made Aug. 1 — his support for Ryan intensified the buzz surrounding the 42-year-old congressman and brought excitement over the possibility a Romney-Ryan ticket to a fever pitch, setting the tone for Ryan’s introduction in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday morning.

“I’m sure [Romney] didn’t pick Ryan because Bill was out there banging the drum, but his banging the drum makes it more feasible, more conceivable, lays the groundwork for the announcement,” Michael Goldfarb, a contributing editor at the Weekly Standard and a longtime Kristol disciple, told POLITICO. “And I’m sure if Bill spent the last six months saying Ryan shouldn’t be the VP, that would have made it a little harder.”